


start smoking cigarettes so i die choking

by notquitepunkrock



Series: walk through this world, feel alone [1]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (author also has ocd), Angst, Gen, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Self-Harm, Smoking, Stanley Uris Has OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Underage Smoking, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 02:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16525229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquitepunkrock/pseuds/notquitepunkrock
Summary: The first time he bought cigarettes, it was the middle of the night.Stanley Uris starts smoking. Things go downhill from there.





	start smoking cigarettes so i die choking

**Author's Note:**

> godbless my babe theo for editing and shit i fucking love her she is the real mvp <3333
> 
> this fic is purely a vent fic bc I am a HuMaN dIsAsTeR who needs to die constantly and i started writing this on my phone mid-ocd breakdown while also smoking a cigarette, but yeah i'm not projecting AT ALL.
> 
> title from Yer Killin Me by Remo Drive which is arguably a terrible song, but it's also my favorite and I've listened to it about thirty five times

The first time he bought cigarettes, it was the middle of the night.

He’d snuck out of his house in the dead of night feeling desperate, self-destructive, and lonely enough to wander the streets of Derry in the dark with no regard for his own safety. About twenty minutes into his adventure, he passed the old corner gas station. At first, he ignored it, shuddering a little at the dirty, dingy little shop, and kept walking.

He was halfway down the block when he stopped, turning to stare back at the gas station. 

It was stupid how much it felt like the neon lights in the window were calling him, stupid how the slightly buzzing light bulbs inside seemed to scream in his ears as he walked through the doors. Old Man Marcus barely acknowledged him as he strolled through the aisles, eyes scanning the snacks and candies without really seeing them. His eyes caught on the poster for Marlboro Originals hanging on the window, though, and something seemed to snap.

Buying them was easier than it should have been. He had a lighter, bright blue with a sticker of an elephant on it that he’d stolen from Richie once and carried around ever since. Old Man Marcus didn’t even card him, just staring with slight judgement from under his eyebrows. The pack was cheaper than he expected, receiving a handful of bills and coins in return for his twenty that he fumbled with awkwardly as he tried to shove them back into his faux-leather wallet. He half-stumbled over his shoes as he left the gas station and rushed down the street.

The quarry was quiet and empty, silent in a way that was almost unsettling amongst the memories of laughing teenage boys and that’s where he smoked for the first time. 

It took a couple drags to get the hang of it; to get used to the way he had to suck in deep and blow the smoke back out and away from his face so the wind would carry it away. He didn’t like the taste of it, the smoky, stale flavor that coated his tongue and his teeth and lingered with each clean breath he took. He didn’t like when the smoke swept back into his face and burned his nostrils and made him cough.

By the end of the cigarette, he had it down. 

* * *

He kept the smoking to himself. Richie and Bev had smoked weed for years, but even they had never touched a cigarette, taking Eddie’s lectures about lung cancer and secondhand smoke and addiction seriously enough to stay away. He smiled and laughed and shoved his secret, dirty habit deep into the bottom of his drawer, only to be visited in the dark of nights when the world got to be too much. It helped that no one expected it of him, with his pressed clothes and his good-boy charm and his need for order. He didn’t have bad habits, they all thought. He never did anything stupid and self-destructive. Not like the others.

It worked for a while.

Eventually, ‘every once in a while’ turned into every week, which turned into every night. 

During the day, he would roll his eyes at the smokers who hung out under the bleachers near him and Richie during third period gym class, would join Eddie in his angry rants about how disgusting it was, would smile tightly and nod when his father condemned the habit at the dinner table. 

But beneath the lunch table he played with the lighter and at night he would drag the red and white pack out from the back of his bedside table. He only bought them at midnight at the corner store, carried them out to the quarry or the Barrens or the river and took care never to smoke at home. He kept mints in his bag next to a small bottle of cologne to hide the smell, just in case his friends could smell it on his skin even hours later.

The secrecy started out of necessity, but it became part of the process. It wasn’t like he was sneaking around, not really. He didn’t even think about it when he was near his friends, would never even dare. It was just part of the process.

And God, he loved the process.

The ritual was so fucking satisfying, so automatic after time passed. 

Drag the pack out of his pocket, hit the bottom of the box on the palm of his hand five times in quick succession before opening it. Pull out the cigarette and lighter, put it between his lips and guard the flame with his hand as he lights it. The drags are slow and precise, the smoke curling upward beautifully. Every couple of puffs, knock the ash off of the end with an easy tap. Stub out the butt with the sole of his shoe, wrap it in a napkin to throw away on the walk home, pop a mint and spray on some cologne, and put it all away. 

Exactly the same every time.

Consistent.

It was a dangerous kind of beautiful.

If he wanted to get poetic, he could explain it away as mere curiosity. He could say something about killing the bad things inside of him, about dying slowly, about making the inside of him as ugly as the outside. 

He could say all of it if anyone noticed. But no one did.

* * *

Bev found out on accident. She was looking through his drawer, searching for a photo that he’d said he’d thrown in there. It was his fault really. He’d told Bev to go searching, forgetting for a moment about his best-kept secret hiding at the back of the drawer. By the time he remembered, her fingers were closing around the pack, her breath catching, her eyes turning accusatory towards him with the tool of his self-destruction clutched in her pale hand.

Time seemed to slow down for a moment as she stared at him.

He tried to make excuses, but in the end there was nothing for it. Her hands clasped around his and she dropped a kiss onto his temple, promised not to tell anyone else, and took the pack away with her when she left, as if that would do anything to stop him. He spent that night scrubbing his hands in the sink forty-five times, until they were cracked and raw and red, but he spent the next day pretending that he was fine.

She watched him a little closer after that.

* * *

It was fascinating to watch the smoke curl towards the sky, he had decided.

The taste wasn’t so bad once you got used to it. 

He liked the smell. 

He didn’t cough anymore.

He stopped popping nearly as many mints, stopped spraying himself down with cologne nearly as often. Eddie started giving him strange looks, sometimes, and he was pretty sure the other boy had figured it out.

He started bringing a pack to school and smoking before class.

* * *

Richie caught him underneath the bleachers with a cigarette between his fingers, mid-drag and yelled at him for fifteen minutes before he was allowed to speak. He didn’t even try to pretend it didn’t happen. In fact, he tried to take another drag of the offending ‘cancer stick’ and Richie, in a very Kaspbrak fashion, hit it out of his hand and stomped on it. He was fascinatingly red in the face as he yelled.

When he explained the self-destructive tendency, cutting across the yelling finally, Richie stopped. His hands fell to his side, his voice dropped, his face went white. 

Richie told him not to let Eddie catch him and sat down to watch.

* * *

He felt like he was falling apart a little bit more everyday. He was going through packs faster now, smoking cigarettes with shaking hands that turned calm with every nicotine-laced breath. He didn’t lose himself in the ritual anymore, though nothing about it had changed. It was just a means to an end, a small piece of the reason. It remained necessary, not a step could be skipped. But the end result was a desire for calm, for the ability to breathe.

It was kind of fucked up that the only thing that let him breathe was the thing that was killing his lungs.

* * *

Mike caught him with a cigarette pressed against his ankle, the last of a neat line of five burn scars he’d made. He didn’t think anyone would find him, didn’t expect to be happened upon at the quarry at three in the morning, and hadn’t been cautious.

He’d fucked up. He’d fucked up. He’d fucked up. He’d fucked up. _He’d_ _fucked up_.

Mike took the cigarette with gentle fingers, stubbing it out in the dirt. There was a first aid kid he kept in his bag that he tugged out, using gentle fingers to clean the burns with water from his water bottle and carefully treat them. 

He was steadfastly not looking at Mike while he works, focussing instead on the remaining burning in his ankle. His fingers itched for another cigarette, and idly he wondered when things got this bad. When did it turn into something to hurt rather than to take the hurt away? He didn’t know anymore. It was getting bad, and there was no way to stop it.

* * *

He tried to stop, but he couldn’t. The ritual had become something he needed, yet another compulsion that drove his life. Half of his intrusive thoughts revolved around his cigarettes, now -  _ I should chainsmoke five in a row, I should let the ash fall onto my skin, I should  _ **_burn this place down_ ** **.**

He was going crazy, and it might just be his own fault.

* * *

Ben didn’t find out. He just seemed to know. Every time he excused himself to smoke with a poorly made excuse, Ben would eye him oddly. He commented on the minty smell, the changes every time he switched colognes - every five weeks, because five was such a perfect number that he had scarred into his skin with the red hot end of a cigarette - the bags under his eyes.

Ben knew, and he couldn’t figure out how. The other boy never brought it up, never actually  _ asked  _ about it, but he knew and that was almost worse.

* * *

He couldn’t breathe anymore. He didn’t want to run anywhere after the others. The last time Richie stole one of his things and took off running, he let him, just digging his nails into the palms of his hands and silently counting in order to deal with the mental screaming at the disorder wrought by Richie’s human embodiment of chaos. Running  _ hurt _ , it burned and made him breathless and tired in a way that reminded him far too much of his panic attacks in the dead of night.

Even riding his bike was almost too much. He knew he should stop, but he couldn’t seem to make himself. 

* * *

Bill found out, and he didn’t know how. Just, one day, he sat down beside him under the bleachers while he was smoking, staring at him with dark eyes. Bill told him it was bad, told him he’d known for weeks but thought it wasn’t that bad, told him he was better than this. Bill asked about the scars on his ankle that he kept covered with his carefully folded socks, asked how long, ( _ five months, Billy, help me _ ), asked where he got them and how.

Two days later he showed up with his own pack and threatened to start smoking if he didn’t stop. 

He cried for the first time in months, and went back to hiding even harder than before.

Bill kept a pack in his car after that as a threat.

* * *

Above the socks there were small, red lines that turned pink and then brown after a few days. Five of them marched their way gently up the side of his calf, the last of which was barely hidden under his socks. No one knew about them, because if they were oblivious enough to think that he’d stopped smoking (and all the ones who knew did) then they were oblivious to not notice those stupid little lines.

Five little cuts made with the sharp end of a safety pin that he’d sterilized with his lighter. (Still light blue, still with a sticker on it, but a completely different lighter. The first had run out ages ago.)

Five little cuts that he reopened every time things got bad.

Five little cuts that were holding him together.

* * *

He didn’t know how Eddie found out either. Just, one day he didn’t know, and the next he was barrelling into his room like the ball of fury that he was, digging through his bag and pulling them out with shaky hands and screaming about dumbassery and slowly dying and  _ do you want to end up like my dad? _

When he said  _ yes _ , Eddie went quiet.

Because he wanted to die slowly. He wanted to die quickly. He just wanted to die.

Eddie took the cigarettes and the lighter and even the safety pin, told him to ask if he thought he needed them, and he did. He asked every night, and Eddie would bike over and talk to him and redirect him until eventually the withdrawals were leaving and the desperation was gone. The urge to slice into those five little cuts remained, but he took care of that in other ways, with other sharp things that Eddie never knew about, and otherwise he was okay.

* * *

He was six months clean of cigarettes when he almost relapsed in the middle of the night. He was anxious and self-destructive, had spent hours counting and recounting on his fingers and rearranging his books until they were finally in an order that felt right, felt  _ perfect _ . At some point, he had snuck out of the house and stumbled down the street.

Derry at night seems like a different world than Derry during the day - there’s no small-minded people to glare at him, no yelling children or passing cars or really any sounds except the crickets and his own breathing. He can almost forget that it’s a small-town hell that he can’t fucking wait to get out of.

Almost.

About twenty minutes into his wandering, he passes by that same corner store. The disgusting yellow light seemed to call to him, drawing him closer. 

He thinks about Eddie’s face if he buys another pack. He wants. He finds himself in front of the doors. 

He thinks of Bev’s disappointed frown when she first found the cigarettes. He hurts. His hand lands on the  _ dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty _ metal handle of the door.

He thinks of Richie yelling himself hoarse. He tears up. He walks across the threshold, feet hitting the disgusting yellowing tiles. 

He thinks of Mike’s gentle hands against the thin, scarred skin of his ankle during every movie night. He sobs. His feet lead him through the aisles of junk food lit by atrocious fluorescent lighting.

He thinks of Ben’s cautious looks. He sniffs. His nails dug deep enough into his palms to draw blood as he made eye contact with Old Man Marcus.

He thinks of Bill’s threats to start himself. He swallows. He turns and walks out the door, down the street, shows up at Bill’s house and throws himself into his arms and sobs. 

He doesn’t do it.

He’s okay.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! comments and kudos are my lifeblood xxx


End file.
